In 1796 Shrewsbury entrepreneursThomas and Benjamin Benyonjoined forces withJohn Marshallof Leeds (who purchased the rights to the flax-spinning machine – a new invention at the time) to construct Ditherington Flax Mill on awell chosen site. At this time the woollen industry in Shrewsbury was declining and the town offered skilled workers, good transport links and a ready market for it’s products, e.g. carpet weaving in Kidderminster and Bridgnorth.
Charles Bagedesigned the new mill. He carried out the first ever tests on the structural properties and strength of iron and built not only the first, but the third and eight oldest iron-framed buildings in the world: all here at Ditherington Flax Mill. He is known to be one of the “true pioneers of structural engineering” (Skempton). Bage later became Mayor or Shrewsbury.
Ditherington Flax Mill really is the first of its kind. Typical mills at the time were five or six stories high and built of brick, stone and wooden floors. The dust created by the spinning process and candlelight often resulted in fires and many mills burnt down. In Leeds during 1791, for example, 5 mills burnt down. Ditherington was built entirely of brick and iron and was the first fireproof mill.
Flaxis known to be the earliest fibre grown by man for textile use. It is a pretty blue or white flowered plant, brought to England by the Romans. In the 18th Century, Ireland had become the largest producer of linen in the world and was the main supplier to the flax to Ditherington Flax Mill.
The crop was dried in bundles across the mill floor, then the dried stalks were deseeded by threshing, combing or beating the tops of the bundles. The deseeded straw was then left to partly rot, so after 7-21 days the barks of the stem could be peeled off to expose the useful fibres. These were then dried, separated and combed by machinery to leave long straight fibres (which look like long straight blond hair) these were then twisted into fibres on the spinning machine.
The Flax Mil factory was employing apprentices from as early as 1802. It is though that there were 800 employees in the early 1840s. The census of 1851 shows that 55% of the 377 workers in that year were aged 20 or younger, 33% were under the age of 16. The present Apprentice House was built in 1812 to house workers. Inside male and female apprentices were kept segregated. The Benyons took seriously the welfare and moral upbringing of their younger employees. John Marshall who owned the mills, in Leeds as well as Ditherington is known to have treated his workers better than most factory workers, forbidding corporal punishment and installing fans to regulate the temperature.
Ditherington Flax Mill ceased production due to the competition from mills in Leeds. The mill was sold to William Jones Maisters (Ltd) who adapted the building for use as a Maltings factory in 1897.
There is much evidence, both inside and outside of the buildings, showing how they were adapted for Malt production. For example, holes were cut in the floor to hold cone shaped hoppers, concrete floors were laid, large tanks to ‘steep’ or wet the barley were installed, the prominent timber hoist tower, with its ornamental capping to celebrate Queen Victoria’s Diamond Jubilee, was constructed. The malting process demanded controlled daylight and ventilation so that two thirds of the windows were blocked off and smaller windows with shutters were inserted. A Malt Kiln was also constructed on the site in 1898.
Making maltfrom barley corns is the first stage of the brewing process. Barleycorns are left in cold water, usually for two days before being moved and spread in thin layer across germination floors. Each batch would be periodically tuned by hand, using a wooden malt shovel. After sufficient germination, when the starch within the barleycorn has been partially converted to malt sugars, the barley is dried and cured by heat treatment in the Malt Kiln stopping the process.
William Jones Maisters (Ltd) went bankrupt in 1934. Since then the site has been used as a Light Infantry Barracks during the Second World War, and again for malting production (Ansells) from 1948 until closure in 1987. The site has remained vacant since.
So much for the first 200 years in the life of the Flaxmill-Maltings: now for the next 100.
Various regeneration schemes have come and gone since 1987, none of them successfully harnessing the necessary private sector investment to give the buildings a new lease of life.
Vandalism and neglect have also taken their toll on the site, which has been on the Heritage at Risk register for many years. Things came to a head in April 2004 when an urgent repairs notice was served on the site’s then owner, forcing a resolution.
With support from Advantage West Midlands and the then Shrewsbury and Atcham Borough Council, English Heritage acquired the freehold of the site in March 2005. Since that time, this partnership has worked to resolve the difficulties facing the development of the site.
In 2005, a detailed structural assessment of the buildings was undertaken by Alan Baxter Associates. This work was necessary to understand the load bearing capacity of the buildings - and what new uses might be appropriate. A number of problems were revealed by the study.
The engineers were able to make use of Charles Bage’s original papers and determined his experiments and calculations on cast iron were reasonably accurate.
The documents revealed that Bage did not fully understand the principal of what is now called ‘hogging’. That is, if a long beam of cast iron rests at its centre point on a column, and weight is applied to its ends, it will bend to a small extent. The beam can then fail without any warning.
Bage also seemed to have not allowed for the fact that as the building was constructed, the additional weight of the outer brick walls made the ground settle - to a greater degree than the ground beneath the columns. Combined with the hogging effect, this resulted in a number of beams failing.
Another problem is the facade walls of the Main Mill, wood, rather than stone, was used to support the beams on the wall. Wood has also been used at the back of the window arches, passing deep into the brick piers on either side. The sheer volume of timber used, and the fact some of it has rotted over the past 200 years, has added to the urgent need for conservation.
The outer skin of the Main Mill is very delicate and scaffolding has been built to hold the walls in place while a solution is designed. Internal propping has also been used to make sure movement is kept to a minimum.